


The Unanswered Question

by SynthApostate



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Fluff, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, socially awkward scientist tries his best, unscientific feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 09:03:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21096896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SynthApostate/pseuds/SynthApostate
Summary: The voice on the radio asked for help, and at least one person answered. Carlos never considered that Cecil could ever be wrong about how Night Vale works. He didn’t mean to make things worse. (Takes place during/after episode 3.)





	The Unanswered Question

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not switching fandoms, I just had this one in me. And maybe one more. Apparently “G, You Look Good to Me” primed me for fluffy boyfriends.

Rear tires skid on gravel as the car slings around in a half-circle in the radio station parking lot. Carlos has never driven so recklessly in his life, but there’s no time for caution.

Carlos feels, somehow, partly to blame. He wrote one of the letters that angered Station Management. Cecil asked his listeners to write in to save the show, and Carlos wrote without a second thought, operating under the faulty assumption that the local radio host knew what the hell he was talking about. He was the expert on his own hometown.

It wasn’t supposed to make things worse.

Carlos continued his scientific work through the afternoon, giving a fraction of his attention to a weather report about choices not made , until—

“Hello, radio audience. I come to you live from under my desk, where I have dragged my microphone, and am currently hiding in the fetal position.”

The sounds coming through the radio are unbearable. For a nonspecific period of time, Carlos is, quite irrationally, too afraid to move. He wants to be hiding under his own desk. He does not want to be hiding under Cecil’s desk, in close physical proximity to those..._that_, but he does wish he could reach out and take Cecil’s hand. Cecil Palmer, who is almost a stranger but who speaks to Carlos every day over the airwaves, is in danger, and he is alone, and Carlos—

Carlos is running. And then Carlos is driving. And then Carlos is skidding on gravel, seconds after Cecil’s uncharacteristically terrified voice goes silent.

Carlos frees himself of his seatbelt and starts to launch himself out of his car. He tells himself that if Cecil has courage enough to make a run for the door, then Carlos can be brave enough to go in after him. He also tells himself that even if he’s devoured, he may learn something scientifically interesting. Not many people devoured by eldritch horrors have the presence of mind to leave behind their notes on the subject.

Carlos is aware that he is not thinking as clearly as he normally does. He does not choose to examine his mental distress too closely. He is here to save the day, because that’s the role he’s fallen into here in Night Vale, and his feelings are irrelevant. His fear is irrelevant.

He has one foot on the ground, the other tangled in his seat belt, which is not letting him go as easily as he thought it would, when the door to the radio station bursts open, and a man appears, hands scrabbling at the doorframe for some kind of physical anchor. He is framed by perfect darkness behind him. Carlos has the absurd and very unscientific idea that throwing some shadows across that void might brighten it up a bit.

“Cecil!” Carlos shouts.

Cecil’s head jerks up, although Carlos doubts he could have heard any human-made sound over the roaring from behind him. Cecil’s feet are no longer finding purchase against the floor, and although nothing appears to be touching him, something is dragging him back into the building. But then he gets one hand on the door and pulls himself out, with a pop that Carlos does not hear but feels deep in his sinus cavities, into the hot desert sun.

Something dark and impossible whips out after him, only to fizzle in the light. The door slams shut.

Cecil, on his hands and knees in the gravel, skitters away from the building, and from the look on his face, Carlos guesses that the reprieve is temporary at best. He gives up on kicking his way free of the seatbelt and dives back into the car, leaning across the seats to throw open the passenger side door.

“Get in!” he orders. Cecil does not have to be told twice.

Carlos drives away from the radio station, both car doors falling shut as they pull out into the street. It doesn’t matter where he’s going. What matters is distance, and to a lesser extent, time. As much as possible of both, put safely between him—them—and that unquantifiable nightmare.

He obeys the traffic laws now. Speed limit, stop signs. He keeps his eyes on the road. He does not look at the man in the seat beside him, not only for the usual reasons but also because he is not yet ready to allow himself to be aware of the incredibly stupid thing he has just done.

He does listen to Cecil’s ragged breathing. He can’t help it. That jittering panic is the only sound in the car, other than the hiss of radio static. Carlos finds himself unable to peel his hands off the steering wheel to turn off the radio, so he resigns himself to the dead air.

Is it coming after them? Frantic glances at the rear view mirror reveal nothing but an empty stretch of road. He reminds himself to breathe.

“Um,” Carlos says. He wants to ask if Cecil is all right. He wants to find a way to learn more about the exact scientific nature of what they’ve just escaped. He wants to both call attention to, and distract from, the daring rescue he’s pretty sure he hasn’t accomplished very well. He does none of these things, but out of the corner of his eye, he sees Cecil straighten in his seat.

“I’m sorry,” Cecil says, his voice a shadow of its usual resonance. “I’m being very rude, aren’t I? Hello, Carlos.”

“Um. Hello, Cecil,” Carlos says automatically, even though pleasantries are the last thing on his mind. Cecil makes a happy sound at hearing his own name from Carlos’s mouth.

“I suppose you must have made a very important scientific discovery of some sort, and you were hoping I would get the word out to my listeners,” he says, like this is any normal day. “If you’d like to fill me in now, I can do it first thing tomorrow, assuming that’s not too late. And I still have a show tomorrow. And a corporeal existence.”

“You’re going back?” Carlos gasps. He takes his eyes off the road to stare at Cecil, who is trembling from head to toe, sweat beading on his forehead and his upper lip, but who gifts Carlos with a placid smile as he reaches out to grip the wheel just under Carlos’s hand. Carlos realizes he has drifted into the turn lane. He goes ahead and pulls into the nearest parking lot before he can run the car up onto the sidewalk. Even in Night Vale, that would be frowned upon. And he doesn’t think they’re being followed. At least not by the thing they’re running from. He still checks the area three times before he puts the car in park.

“Of course I’m going back to work,” Cecil says, with what would be obnoxious condescension if not for the sweetness of his smile. “Station Management certainly isn’t going to approve any time off after today.”

“But—aren’t they going to kill you?” Carlos sputters. “I mean, _literally_ end your life?”

“Possibly,” Cecil says, with an impossibly graceful shrug. “You might be better off calling a press conference, if your discovery is time-sensitive.” He stumbles over the word. Carlos is not sure Cecil fully grasps the concept of non-malleable, linear time.

“I haven’t discovered anything,” Carlos mumbles, bending over to finally unwind the seatbelt from around his ankle. The statement is not entirely factual. He has discovered previously unidentified feelings regarding Cecil Palmer’s radio show and continued existence. Those feelings have no scientific basis, and Carlos does not choose to behave like a sweaty-palmed sixteen-year-old by expressing them.

When he looks again, Cecil’s expression has brightened. His full-body shudders have subsided into nothing more than a slight tremor of the hands.

“Did you need my input on something?” Cecil asks, in something very like his normal voice. “Something scientific? I’m always happy to further the cause of science.”

He has put his terror somewhere else, somewhere inaccessible, in the way that most of Night Vale seems to be able to do. It’s a survival tactic. That in itself is scientifically interesting, but not worth pursuing at the moment. For Carlos, Carlos the outsider, the reaction is only just starting to set in.

“I was just,” he says, and doesn’t know how to go on from there. “I was in the neighborhood?” It sounds suave in his head, a line spoken by an action movie hero. It does not sound suave squeaking its way out of his throat. “I saw the...um? I thought you might need a...” How does this sentence end? ‘Rescue’ sounds self-aggrandizing. ‘Ride’ sounds sexual. “You probably have your own car,” he says aloud, meaning and forgetting to keep that realization to himself.

“I do,” Cecil says happily.

“Oh. Is it...safe to go back for it?” He’s pretty sure Cecil will want to go back for his own vehicle and drive himself home. He’ll want transportation for what might be his last night alive. But Carlos is not going to facilitate that end-of-life scenario if he can help it. He won’t drop Cecil back in that parking lot without some guarantee of safety.

“I don’t think they saw you,” Cecil says with a thoughtful frown. “And, don’t worry. If I’m still on the air tomorrow, I won’t mention anything about this. You should be perfectly safe.” He settles back into his seat, smiling again. “Perfectly, relatively safe.” His voice slows, and Carlos wonders if he’s feeling drained after his burst of adrenaline, even though he’s removed himself from his terror and the physical symptoms that come with it. Is that how this works? Carlos is no biologist.

“I’m not worried about me,” Carlos says.

“Of course not. You’re an incredibly brave and selfless man.”

Carlos responds to that statement the only way he knows how, by seizing on the first thought that flits through his brain and flinging it out between them like a shield.

“You have Lyme disease!” Great. He wants to slam his own face against the steering wheel and let the horn drown him out, but instead he clears his throat and says “Um. I mean. Did you say you were battling Lyme disease?”

“I did!” Cecil beams at him. “You were listening?”

“Yes. I listen. In the lab. While I’m working. Good—“ He almost says ‘good show today.’ What is he thinking? “Good noise,” he says instead. What. Is. Wrong. With. Him? ‘Good noise’?!

Fortunately, Cecil takes it as a compliment. Carlos suspects Cecil would take just about anything as a compliment.

“You’re very perceptive. Not many people value noise as they should.”

Background noise, Carlos wants to say. It helps me focus, he wants to say. While I’m doing science. Instead he says, helplessly, “Lyme disease?” And then, somehow, he finds his way forward. “That must be very difficult. Battling Lyme disease.”

“Yes,” Cecil agrees. “Conventional weapons don’t seem to be very effective.”

Carlos stares at him. Cecil stares back, pleased with the attention and apparently oblivious to the cause of it.

“Are you being metaphorical?” Carlos finally asks. Cecil has a way with words that Carlos never will. Maybe by conventional weapons, he means modern medicine?

“Not intentionally.” Cecil looks down at himself, checking for metaphorical traits, and Carlos reminds himself to be more specific. And also reminds himself to find out later if Night Vale residents are capable of literally being metaphorical, and if so, how that works.

“_How_ are you battling Lyme disease?” he asks. “Tell me your doctor prescribed antibiotics?”

“Doctor?” Cecil repeats dubiously. “I don’t know how this sort of thing is done outside of Night Vale, but around here it’s not considered very sporting to call in backup. It’s sort of a moral imperative to win the battle unaided. Besides, my doctor is only three days from retirement.” He says that last part with a significance Carlos doesn’t understand, but he’s getting used to that.

“Unaided,” Carlos says. “But not unarmed?”

”No, of course not. I’m allowed any weapons I can get my hands on.”

“Good,” Carlos says under his breath. He fastens his seatbelt and shifts the car back into drive. He can’t do anything about Station Management, but this is a problem he can solve.

“Where are we going?” Cecil asks, sounding both exhausted and completely unconcerned. “Back to my car? It might be safer to give it some time first, in case Station Management is still watching. You don’t want them to see you driving me around. We could grab a slice at Big Rico’s,” he says eagerly. “That should give them just about enough time to lose interest.”

“I’m not taking you to your car,” says Carlos. He has them out on the road again before he realizes how high-handed that sounds. “Sorry, I’m not trying to kidnap you or anything. But what you need is a hospital.”

“What on earth for?” Cecil asks, and for the first time Carlos remembers the snippets of information he’s received about Night Vale General. He turns the car toward Route 800, the only road that has consistently allowed him to pass through the city limits. He’s not sure it would let Cecil out if he was on his own, but there are some benefits to being an outsider. He can still see the holes in reality, and he can get through them. Meaning he can get them to a hospital that will properly “arm” Cecil with basic penicillin.

“Trust me,” he says. “I’m a scientist.” And Cecil does, he knows without a doubt.

Carlos hopes Cecil is close enough to normal for the treatment to take. And he hopes hospitalization is excuse enough to buy Cecil a few days off work. Maybe enough time to figure out a way to placate those things in the radio station.

He also hopes he can figure out a way to make conversation other than shrieking the name of a disease over and over again.

That last one doesn’t happen, but as they slip back into the world Carlos still mostly calls home, another station comes on the radio. Carlos still hasn’t turned it off, and now he doesn’t have to. A man who is not Cecil introduces a song that is not the weather, and two men who are almost strangers listen together as miles of desert pass by their windows.

The sun has long since set here on the other side of the city limits, so Carlos finds it entirely appropriate when Cecil murmurs to the blank horizon behind them, “Good night, Night Vale. We’ll be back.”


End file.
